U of H Senior Design Project: Steam-Methane Reforming Hydrogen Generation Plant

The 2013-2014 University of Houston’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department capstone design project involves the design of a steam-methane reforming hydrogen generation plant.  The objective of undergraduate seniors is to design all relevant chemical processes with emphasis on health, safety and environment aspects, equipment design, process economics, profitability analysis, and optimum operating conditions. Teams need to achieve the product specification given a specific feedstock and using appropriate unit operations.  The calculations are done without the use of a computer-aided design software package in the fall semester.  They also determine the high-level capital requirements to build such a plant.  Aspen is used in the spring semester so the teams can focus on optimizing the design and determine its profitability.  One of the teams is presenting their fall-semester work at this conference.